


If I Only Could

by trinityofone



Series: Running Up That Hill [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gen, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 06:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20205217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinityofone/pseuds/trinityofone
Summary: And if I only couldI'd make a deal with GodAnd I'd get Her to swap our placesA series of variations on a theme.





	If I Only Could

The angel knelt at the edge of heaven. “I don’t understand,” he said.

He was not expecting an answer. He had given up expecting Answers, even before this…this.

Light washed over him, light so bright it blinded him, briefly and mercifully, to the horrors below.

_What is beyond your comprehension, my child?_

The angel’s jaw dropped. His being swelled with love and fear and worship. Like a leaf clutching the edge of a branch, he trembled.

_Speak. If you wish to._

He no longer wished to. Or rather, he knew with stark certainty that he should not. Wish to. Or do so. He should bow and scrape and leave this place.

“Why?” he said.

_A broad question._ He could feel the weight of Her expectation.

“Why _them_?” he asked in a rush. “The Morningstar, I understand, I suppose…his lieutenants…but they weren’t the only ones… It’s so…so many…”

_Yes. Half._

“_Half_?” he asked. Before he knew it, he was on his feet. “I…I’m sorry, but that can’t be right, I knew them, some of them, and they couldn’t have…maybe a stray thought, some of them, but that can’t be enough, surely, or else I—” He swallowed.

_Ask your question._

The straightness of his spine was suddenly a terror to him. He wanted to sink back down into the earth.

He looked at Her and in Her brightness, the gold of his eyes was washed away to pale nothing.

“Why them and not me?”

The full force of Her lapped against him. Was there sadness there? Humor? Nothing? It was all too much, too big, and he was so, so small.

_Chance._

“Chance,” he said quietly. “You mean it…it was…”

_Random._

“No,” he said. “No, no, that can’t be right,” he repeated. “That isn’t fair.”

_Life is not going to be terribly fair, I believe._

He had pulled his wings tight to his body. They cocooned him. “But…why,” he said again, said pointlessly, recklessly. “You could—forgive me, but you could do _anything_, you could—”

_I could make you all sing hosannas forever in My glory and never have a single independent thought. Is that what you would like?_

“No,” he said, with a vehemence that surprised him.

_I thought not._

He expected Her to leave him then. She might have then departed, and he would have, should have considered himself fortunate.

“But,” he said.

_Yes, child?_

“But…if it’s about, about…” He couldn’t think of the phrase. “…_choice_,” he tried, “I still don’t understand. Shouldn’t _they_ have been able to choose?”

He motioned over the edge, to the black-winged bodies moving weakly in the fields of fire and mud that even now seemed to be drifting further and further away from them: spiraling down and down into deeper, unseen depths, where they would be lost from Her light forever.

_Is that what you want?_ She asked him, voice like thunder. _A choice?_

“To save them?” he asked hopefully, disbelieving.

_To trade._

“What,” he said, barely a breath, he was so filled with fear.

_I will give you a Choice, curious little angel. You may swap, if you like. Pick one. Take their place._

The angel lowered his head. Penitent. 

_It’s all right, my child._ And he felt a touch, like a warm and loving hand, soothing the tumble of his riotous amber curls.

Something deep within him blazed, bristled.

“All right,” he said.

For a moment he didn’t recognize his own voice. Then he found himself again, the ground of heaven firm beneath his feet. He lifted his eyes into the light.

“Fine. Yes.” He stretched out an arm and pointed blindly over the edge of everything. “That one,” he said, and felt one of the blackened bodies stir. He didn’t know them, this other angel, but he felt the pulse of their being then, sharp and gentle, even now with the corruption taking hold, the rot creeping in: soft and sweet and bursting with questions and desires and love and hunger and—all of it, the stuff of creation, not so different from him, really. No different at all.

“I choose that one,” he said. “If I’m only worth one, let it be that one, take him back and I’ll—”

And the angel Fell.

**Author's Note:**

> I envision this as a triptych, with two more standalone parts to come. I hope.
> 
> With thanks to Siria for screaming, "Post it!" And to Kate Bush, always.


End file.
